Christopher Clack at digital surface

CASE STUDY

Context

Brief outline of the artist’s practice

Until 2003 I had been working with the traditional tools of painting, sculpture and printmaking (mainly etching and monotype).
My intention is always to produce an unforgettable image. An image that’s as new and as surprising to me as it is to anyone else. Originally a painter and sculptor image was for me embedded in the process not an add-on. Surface, texture and feel is always an issue. The image must always be embodied.

1. Brief explanation of working process

Working process can vary. I could start from a blank canvas or a work could start by a drawing together of possible source material which is explored until a direction is found. Or I can have a very clear idea of what I want to happen from the very beginning.

2. Relationship of digital technology to other processes/technologies

I am generally pleased when the viewer says they are unsure how the image has been made, and are confused as to which technologies I am using.

3. Indication of how they regard the surface in terms of importance

Although I am very much an image-based artist, an all over ‘felt’ surface was a very important part of image making and meaning for me.
The surface is a major consideration from the beginning of putting the thing together. I am up close from the start.
In my first year of working purely on screen, the lack of a ‘real’ surface continued to be a frustration. But there was a day while working on a particular image when it felt as if a switch had been thrown in my head. I began to feel like I was really painting, things felt different; somehow the image on the screen had developed a palpable surface. I now believe that with intense periods of working on screen, combined with previous experience of working with real paint, surface, texture, that a strong virtual sense of surface is developed which then feeds into the work.
A single brush mark in oil paint is the rendering of a mental event. I have realised since working digitally that what’s real in the sense of surface is the intensity of the mental event. We reach out and touch with our eyes (brains).

Specific issues to the new piece of work

1. At what point in the development of the work is the size of the image fixed?

I work on as large a file as I can to keep size possibilities open. In this image I have printed it as large as my printer will go, which is 112cm on the shorter side. It works at this scale but I feel that different and interesting things would happen at a larger size.

2. At what point is the actual surface considered?

The surface is a consideration from the beginning of the work.

3. What factors determine the choice or creation of the surface in this new work?

The surface of this particular work was very much affected by the original piece it was based on, which had a three dimensional aspect (a book stuck to the surface of the painted panel).This prompted the use of the scanner to scan in the actual object/book. The scanner has a very shallow depth of field. The part of any scanned object closest to the glass can have the effect, when printed, of lying on, or breaking through the picture surface. (It’s the very shallowness of the space which seems to make it more real, It reminds me a little of the space in a high cubist painting by Picasso /Braque.)

4. How does working digitally contrast with other practises they have used?

Chance and accident had always played a part in the making and resolving of an image. My work had also always had an element of incongruous combining of images. It’s been a surprise to me that this aspect of my picture making has been enhanced in the digital process. With the possibility of switching source material on or off on a layer the possibilities seem endless (this of course can brings its own problems).
As a painter I always ‘over painted’, losing possibilities buried under layers of pigment. Now those possibilities remain accessible in a way not possible before.

Title ‘From dictatorial to dilution’

Size 112 cm x 150cm

Material Somerset Velvet.

Process: body and object scans, digital collage, digital painting drawing to Digital print. The work is based on a student work which had taken the form of a relief, a painted panel with a book fixed to the surface.

To produce the digital version I first gathered my source materials. I made a flat bed scan of a dictionary. This had to be made in sections as I only have an A4 scanner. The sections were then reassembled in Photoshop. The scan was as high quality as I could make it so that even the texture of the surface of the book would be evident in the print.

Various bits of medical textbook illustrations were scanned as well as some text from different sources.

Bits of body, in this case my own, were also scanned. I found that fixing the scanner to the wall made this easier.

Producing a profile image of my head was an interesting process. As I could not get the whole image in one scan I made several which all ended up at slightly different viewpoints. I then reassembled them in Photoshop to produce a single viewpoint, and it felt a bit like cubism in reverse.

Once I have all the material I then make it as accessible as possible either on different layers and/or on separate pages ready to be dragged across. I then work making decisions as quickly as I can using collage, painting and drawing.

Stage 2 scans

Chris Clack 01